SOCCER I Campbell wanted site later rejected by city staff, Peter Ladner, Sam Sullivan say
Frances Bula
Sun
An artist’s rendering of the view from north of Whitecaps Waterfront Stadium and downtown Vancouver.
Planning for the Whitecaps soccer stadium could have started a lot sooner if Mayor Larry Campbell had not told the owners he supported a site on False Creek Flats that the city’s planning department ultimately put the brakes on, say the Non-Partisan Association’s two councillors.
“Larry Campbell told them … it was a great idea to go up in the Flats, then they were told later it wasn’t a good idea,” said Coun. Peter Ladner. “I know they felt blindsided. They had definitely been encouraged to go there — if that had gone more smoothly, we would have been ready for [the World Youth Soccer Championship in 2007]. They were very surprised and shocked.”
Coun. Sam Sullivan said he is “embarrassed at how we have dragged these investors through our processes,” especially when Toronto and Montreal have managed to acquire sites and complete approvals in only a four-month period, which means they will be ready by 2007.
But Campbell and Coun. Jim Green say that accusation shows the NPA councillors don’t understand anything about the city’s process for major projects, and how it works.
“If Sam thinks that’s the kind of power a mayor has, he has things to learn,” said Campbell. “On a daily basis, I have four or five people who say they want to do some project and I give them my personal opinion. But do I have the power to push it through? That’s crazy. At the end of the day, I don’t make the decision. Council and the planning department make the decision.”
Campbell said it took the Whitecaps two years to get to this week’s announcement of their plans for a $62-million stadium on a site over rail tracks in downtown Vancouver because they had a hard time finding a site.
“It was always a search for the right place and they had to assemble that land, which was owned by a number of people,” he said.
Two years ago, rumours started to circulate that the Whitecaps were interested in building a new stadium and that they were looking at a piece of city land near the train station at Main and Terminal.
The city’s planning department then initiated a process in the summer of 2004 to develop an overall plan for the whole area, because of that proposal and talk of St. Paul‘s Hospital and a casino potentially locating on land now zoned for industrial use. That comprehensive planning process is still underway and was one of the reasons the Whitecaps owners abandoned that site.
The Vancouver Sun was unable to reach any Whitecaps representatives for comment.
NPA council candidate Suzanne Anton, who has worked energetically to encourage a new soccer stadium, said she had never heard that the owners were dissatisfied or that they had been delayed in any unusual way.
She said although the owners were hoping it might be finished for 2007, that was never a realistic possibility given all the challenges of a major project.
But the NPA councillors did say they think the city should find a way to shorten what promises to be a two-year process to get all city approvals for the stadium. A staff report going to council Thursday recommends a six-month, $160,000 review to be paid for by the owners, before council even considers sending the project to rezoning hearings.
© The Vancouver Sun 2005